Ear plugs are soft plugs that are inserted into the outer ear canal to block ambient sound and environmental noise. Ear plugs are available in various sizes and shapes. Rounded ear plugs fit directly into the outer ear canal and are less prone to falling out of the ear due to movement. Conformable ear plugs generally fit into the cavum conchae of the outer ear to provide a less intrusive form of hearing protection. However, conformable ear plugs are also more apt to fall out if not well-fitted to a particular user's outer ear contours.
Ear plugs are frequently used by people who must sleep in a noisy environment. For example, ear plugs are often used by airplane and train passengers traveling on long trips, sometimes overnight, and who want to sleep to either pass the time or due to an upcoming busy schedule at their destination. Ear plugs are also used by people whose sleep is disturbed each night by ambient noise or a snoring spouse. Ear plugs are also useful to assist concentration of people working in a noisy environment.
The noise reduction or cancellation provided by ear plugs blocks ambient sounds non-discriminately, which can sometimes have unintended side affects. For instance, people who wear ear plugs while sleeping often need to wake up at a certain time and would prefer to use an alarm clock to wake on time. However, the ear plugs can block an alarm clock sound, thereby rendering alarm clock usage meaningless. Furthermore, ear plugs can block emergency or warning signals, such as generated by a fire or burglar alarm, and potentially imperil the wearer.
Overriding ear plugs by simply using a louder signal offers an incomplete solution. For example, an alarm clock with an alarm loud enough to penetrate through the ear plugs is not always practical. On an airplane or train, an extra-loud alarm clock could disturb other passengers, while at home, an extra-loud alarm clock could unnecessarily wake up the user's spouse. Similarly, placing an alarm clock close to a user's ear can be inconvenient, as the user could move away from the alarm clock while sleeping, or impractical, such as on an airplane where physically attaching an alarm clock to a seat could be prohibited.
In the prior art, a personal audible alarm is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,006 to O'Brien, issued May 23, 2000, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference. An audible alarm is placed in an ear plug or hearing protection device. An audio output is located on a side of the earplug open to or exposed to the user's ear canal. The ear plug includes a battery, clock display, time set switch, alarm set switch, hour set switch, and minute set switch for indicating time of day and alarm time. However, the O'Brien device lacks provisions for external battery recharging and alarm programming and cannot receive downloadable audible alarm tones.
Accordingly, there is a need for an approach to embedding a programmable alarm feature directly into an ear plug.
There is a further need for an approach to providing a programmable alarm feature that can receive and generate an alarm signal independently of ear plug noise reduction or cancellation.